GUILFORD STORY WINS EMMYby Kay BourneA short film on Roxbury resident nonagenarian JIMMY GUILFORD‘s military service and rescue from drowning by a fellow Black G.I. in World War II has won an Emmy.

Produced exclusively for the web and directed by Jesse J. Logan, 31, the 10 minute “pod cast,”“Surviving the War: the Story of James E. Guilford, Jr.,” can be seen on the Basic Black web site. The Emmy was for ‘Advanced Media Writer/Producer.’

Guilford, who was born in 1911 at home, which was the third floor apartment in a brick building on Sterling Street in Roxbury, was away from the Boston neighborhood only from 1942 to 1945, when his military duty took him to the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign, the New Guinea Campaign, and the Philippine Campaign and invasion.

Logan’s film narrows in on Guilford’s memories of being wounded in northern Guinea when his boat which was transporting Christmas dinners to the front was blown out of the water. Guilford’s life was saved that day by fellow soldier and buddy Pvt. George Watson at the cost of Watson’s life. Mr. Guilford has written a book about the bravery of Pvt. Watson who saved many lives, including the white lieutenant in charge of the unit. Recently a ship was named in Pvt. Watson’s honor, the UNSN Watson.

Logan was invited to make the film in conjunction with the Ken Burns 7-part documentary series “The War,” which explores the history and horrors of the Second World War from an American perspective by following the lives of men and women caught up in the great cataclysm. These individuals came from four geographically disparate towns, none of them in Massachusetts. So WGBH wanted a local angle. Logan, herself African American, had heard of Mr. Guilford, although she is only recently in Boston. “I’d heard he is a living legend and an incredible person,” she said in a phone interview.

The word of mouth proved to be so, said Logan, who feels “so grateful to be appointed to do the film. I put my all in it.”

Logan, a graduate of Howard University, says she is comfortable talking with much older people as her family is long lived, including her great grandmother with whom she was very close, who lived to be 97.

“I knew going into preparing for the film that my conversation with Mr. Guilford would probably be long because he has accomplished so much in his life. The pre-interview is crucial to tease out the aspects best to be shown in the podcast. My concern was how could I narrow it down.” Logan’s camera follows Mr. Guilford as he walks on a cane down the corridor of his Fort Hill apartment building for elderly residents and into his small apartment where he goes through memorabilia of the war years and relates his memories. A “podcast” is an amalgram of ipod and broadcast.

“He still has nightmares about that experience. He still remembers it in great detail,” she said. WGBH Boston won four Emmy awards at the 31st Boston/New England Emmy Awards Ceremony at the Marriot Copley Place on Saturday, May 10. The other wins were an interview by Maria Hinojosa“Ray Suarez” on “One-on-One, an advanced media interactivity, Open Call: “A Clearing in the Fog,” and advanced media animator/motion graphic design Open Call “War Games.”

CALVIN BURNETT HONOREDby Kay Bourne (Sojourner Truth by Calvin Burnett)Fellow artists who cherish and admire CALVIN BURNETT shared some memories of their friend in the arts at the Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists recently. The museum is currently host to a small exhibit of the prolific artist’s work. The gallery display predominantly features Burnett’s interest in Black history and politics as these paintings had been donated to the center by a collector interested in that theme, however, Burnett had a much broader spectrum as the discussion May 18 revealed.

A panel of speakers moderated by the museum’s director E. Barry Gaither led off the conversation which focused in large part on Burnett’s involvement and impact on the Roxbury and African American community in Boston for over half a century.

The son of a doctor, Burnett was born in Cambridge in 1921 and attended the Cambridge Public Schools, followed by the Massachusetts College of Art from which he was graduated in 1942.

He would return to that school as a professor after obtaining several other degrees including an MFA from Boston University in 1960 but much earlier, in 1950, he became the first art teacher for the newly formed Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts which at that time was on Waumbeck Street in Roxbury, and in the mid Sixties he joined James Marcus Mitchell along with other aspiring artists of color in forming the Boston Negro Artists Association, now the Boston Black Artists Association, whose keynote activity which continues to this day is the annual Art in the Park open air exhibition of the work of Black artists.

One of the panelists, Rebecca Hill, has been the president of the Boston Black Artists Association off and on for many years and is a charter member, signing on to the organization February 10, 1966. Hill says that Calvin Burnett helped her as a public school teacher to break away from the concept of using the orange crayon to color in the people you drew and breaking out of boxed in thinking about doing art in many other ways as well. “He would say, “spread the brush around to connect to the spirit, and put that on the canvas,” she recalled.

Burnett’s own work ranged from studies of people to abstract work, “he was adventurous,” writes E. Barry Gaither in a profile that is available to museum visitors, “pursuing many disparate interests. He experimented with the use of metallic paints, using spray cans and other techniques to apply pigment to his surfaces. Unafraid of abstraction, he cut, sliced, and folded painted canvas to create quite wonderful low relief compositions. Indulging his passion for perspective, he fashioned intriguing sometimes confounding linear arrangements of boxes, cylinders, and other forms in pictorial space.”

A second panelist Gary Rickson spoke of Burnett’s commitment to a.r.t. “artistically revealing the truth.” The muralist whose “Africa Is The Beginning” on the outside wall of the Warren Street YMCA at the corner of Martin Luther King Blvd. and also an early member of the BBAA, said that the BBAA meetings from the very first one at Freedom House caused “a great awakening in my mind.”

The third panelist Robert Murrell, who had been a student of Mr. Burnett’s at the Mass. College of Art where Murrell majored in painting and illustration, spoke of how as a teenager he went to an early BBAA Art in the Park exhibit where “it was sensory overload. Everywhere I looked there were Black faces admiring the art and work by Black people. It totally blew me away and was a turning point in my life.” He added that coming from a lower income family, “art was not a priority” when it came to considering a future career but he pursued it anyway once he felt he could belong in that world. He also talked of Burnett’s highly evolved technical skill in drawing perspective; Calvin Burnett is the author of the important “Objective Drawing Techniques” (Rheinhold Publishing Company, 1966).

Among those in the audience who added to the treasury of memories was daughter Tobey who lovingly recalled that her dad’s art was the familiar stuff of everyday life, “a painting hanging over the kitchen table, canvases lying about on the couch. He would often say, ‘remember, life can’t be perfect but art can.’”

Over the last decade of his life, Burnett lost his sight and suffered increasingly from Alzheimer’s disease. He died October 8, 2007 in Medway, Massachusetts, where he lived. His daughter Tobey and his wife of many years, Torrey Mulligan, survive him. Mrs. Burnett attended the Museum of the NCAAA gathering as well.

PURE JOY OF MOVEMENTby Beverly CreaseyArcheologists have discovered cave paintings of animals, warriors and dancers dating back three thousand years. Even before the written word, primitive choreographers were notating dances with pictures. According to these cave drawings, primitive man hunted, fished, fought . . .and danced! So who were these figures whose movements were deemed so important that they were depicted on stone? Were they royalty? Priests? Elders?

After a performance by Prometheus Dance’s ELDERS ENSEMBLE, you’ll be thinking they were definitely tribal elders. Diane Arvanites-Noya and Tommy Neblett choreograph gorgeous, intricate pieces for their senior company (ages 55 to 85) which the dancers execute in elegant symmetry. Some of the work is highly theatrical, with dramatic components which the performers deliver like seasoned actors. What sets these dancers apart from their younger counterparts is the joy they radiate and the unabashed freedom of movement they exude as they dance. They’re having a grand time out there on stage.

Having seen all but one of the pieces before (An exquisite new work which celebrates the sacred premiered this weekend) I realized that the familiar works had changed slightly and seemed even more poignant. The dancers have grown into their roles so that the work is richer and fuller now. Audiences are struck by the exuberance and playfulness of the performances. ALL DRESSED UP (from 2007) is a madcap romp, a Felliniesque voyage of dreams and discovery, presided over by ringmaster Dorothy Elizabeth Tucker.

SHADOW PROPHECY (from 2006) sets Marcie Mitler centerstage, surrounded and buffeted by the Fates. It’s a harrowing lamentation which ends in triumph, when Miller comes to terms with, and embraces her destiny. Arvanites & Neblett’s remarkable new piece embraces the SACRED in all its forms: nature, spirit and worship. The dancers sway to ancient chants and Latin litanies and are lifted up as if in an embrace of peace. The transcendent images follow the music, changing from Eastern to Western, from Hindu prayer gesture to a Pieta tableau. Joan Green delivers a paean to nature at the end of the piece and the dancers whisper their own prayers as they exit the stage.

Their last dance has become their signature: It’s a sassy, hip little number (from 2005) which says it all. The dancers sport saucy sundresses and shades, ready to catch some rays in their aluminum lawn chairs but they don’t lounge for long. Those chairs are airborne, the music by Ray Charles and Nat King Cole beckons them to come out and play . . .and they do, kicking their legs over their heads and amusing us with their stories. Leave it to Betty Milhendler to end hers with “THERE’S A DANCE IN THE OL’ DAME YET!”

In Barbara Ehrenreich‘s new cultural history of dance, she speculates that no less than the decline of Western civilization began with the church’s suppression of Medieval Festivals with their ecstatic ritual dancing. You might say that The Elders Ensemble is saving the world, one dance at a time.

AGE IS INby Beverly Creasey
(pictured: Lillian Burke)The red carpet was rolled out at Providence House recently for the world premiere of Matt Weber‘s documentary film “The People of Providence House,” about the residents of the Brighton senior living community. Providence, which means divine care, may have played a part in the match. Weber sent out an e-mail to several assisted living facilities, looking for a group of elders to film and Carol O’Shaughnessy, Boston’s own cabaret queen and coincidentally, activities director at Providence House, jumped at the chance to make stars of the residents.

Documentary filmmakers are the brave ones and often the unsung ones: They work without a net, often working alone and they manage to make a movie without a script or actors. They have to contend with all the unpredictable elements that feature filmmakers do—but they don’t have grips or sound engineers or a lighting crew to set up a shot. Matt Weber has great instincts. He trusts his subjects to simply tell their stories, gently coaxing them with subtle questions. Then he works his magic, cutting and editing the interviews into a short feature which crackles with energy and glows with genuine warmth. The camera, as they say, loves these shining faces.

The energy and vitality which comes through the lens is palpable. One of Providence House’s first residents, Natalie Barr, remembers an anti-fascist song she and her father would sing at North End parades. With a little nudge from O’Shaughnessy, she performs the jaunty song, in Italian, in toto.

The residents have fun with Weber, getting him to guess how old they are—which he does with aplomb. One wily resident, Jeanne Shea, handles the “age” request by quipping, “I’m old enough to know better but still young enough to learn.” Weber’s subjects range in age all the way to ninety-nine year old Lillian Burke, who marvels at all the changes she has seen over her lifetime.

Weber says he works in film because it can capture “the sight and sound and character of an individual.” Trixie Bridger lights up the screen with her stories. Watching her eyes sparkle, you think to yourself, she could have a film career yet. Eva Rachin tells a hilarious yarn about an unwanted passenger in the cab taking her, in labor, to the hospital. Thornton Garst remembers how he escaped a clothesline tether at three. All the participants have lovely, small life moments which resonate large in Weber’s film, from selling hotdogs in Filene’s Basement to canning crabmeat on an assembly line to hearing Ella Fitzgerald in her heyday.

In addition, the Norton’s had two special awards. One was for Andrea Martin (IRNE award for Huntington Theater’sTHE ROSE TATTOO), once a theater major at Emerson College who made her professional debut at the Wilbur Theater (YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN). A day after the Norton ceremony, Martin received her 4th Tony nod for MEL BROOKS‘ YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN. The second special Norton award was presented to the Huntington Theater‘s outgoing artistic director, Nicholas Martin, who will take the reigns at the Williamstown Theater Company next month.

Staples’ performance – which raised the roof down time and time again – was marked by one vocal highlight after another (“Wade in the Water “, “Respect Yourself”, “I’ll Take You There”) delivered as she strutted across the stage with the energy that would impress you, coming from a performer half her age.

Staples was backed up by a six-piece band (the generous singer left the stage for ten minutes, allowing guitarist Rick Holmes to riff in a tremendous solo) and backup singers – including her sister Yvonne.

Staples sang what she reported as Dr. King’s favorite Staples song, “I’m Treated So Bad” recalled her father, the late Pop Staples (founder of The Staples Singers); and recalled marching on Selma with King (“Respect Yourself”), saying she will continue singing “until Dr. King’s dream comes true.”

Watching this performer – and the enthusiastic audience’s response – was proof that belief in King’s dream is very much alive in Boston.

INDY ADVENTURES LATER IN LIFEby Lisa SimmonsAs a true believer in everything INDY, I waited in anticipation for the latest installment of the Indiana Jones adventure, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I wasn’t disappointed. Speckled with quips and retorts from all the main characters, the film is entertaining and fun.

The film opens twenty years after RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK where we find Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) up to his old tricks only moving a bit slower and still, as we see later on, in love with Marion (Karen Allen), the woman he had left behind.

Much like the past Jones stories, this film is filled with great stunts, captivating shots and twisting mysteries that keep you engaged until the end. Yes, it’s kind of hokey in parts, for example, the greaser biker dude only barely fits into the story, but Shia LaBeouf (most likely the new Indiana Jones) holds his own against Ford and Allen.

There are problems taking up with the same characters 20 years later but the story works. We find an older Indie and a resolute Marion on in years, both having moved on with their lives. Yet, both are still up for adventures, with a more settled Marion nevertheless getting herself into some trouble that only Indiana Jones can get her out of. Therein lies the reunion. There they are in an Aztecian jungle, coming back together just about where they left off. It’s actually comforting much the way it was when your parents read you a favorite story once again.

Karen Allen has not been seen on the big screen for at least 15 years and after resigning herself to the fact that there just were no decent roles for an older actress (she’s 56) she took up knitting and made a very successful business of it in Great Barrington, MA. When Stephen Spielberg called to let her know they were doing another Indie and she was in it, she was thrilled and back to the desert she went for a homecoming that was as sweet and tender as the one on screen. Twenty years later, their chemistry still works. Who says you can’t go home again.

THE CITY GIRLS AGE GRACEFULLYby Lisa SimmonsThe popular TV series Sex in the City makes the transition to the big screen without a glitch. It’s a heartwarming, charming, and fun movie about growing up, moving on, and maintaining your style.

After an overlong expository beginning to get the back story out so newcomers can get familiar with the characters, the movie settles in to what we know, what we love and what we follow about these women. Jennifer Hudson does a good job of playing the angel-come-lately to a much unraveled Carrie.

At even two and a half hours, the film doesn’t seem over long, in fact, I found myself hoping at the time that it wouldn’t end because there were so many other things I wanted to happen. I’ll just say this, you won’t be disappointed whether you are a Sex in the City fan or you have never seen an episode, it’s a great chick flick and guys will love it to.

LOCAL DESIGNER SHOWS LINE AT OBAMA FUNDRAISERby Kay Bourne
(pictured: Basile Ngangue Ebelie, director of the International Pan African Film Festival and Forastene Bailey)Fashion enthusiasts are in for a truly big treat at the BOOGIE FOR OBAMA fundraiser this weekend. Designer FORASTENE BAILEY will present the five original outfits she created for the opening night of the International Pan African Film Festival in Cannes, which ran this spring from April 18 through April 23 at Cannes. Models paraded along a terra cotta pathway between the audience and the sea at Noga Beach which got the eighth annual event off in high style.

For the Obama night, actor Yvonne Murphy, a Wheelock Family Theater favorite, will model the clothes throughout the evening. The whole collection is in white with a mix of eyelet cotton and raw silk. “Two years ago I had a dream of white, white , white,” designer Forestene explains. She keeps a pad and pencil by her bedside exactly for such inspirations, and when she awoke, she began to create the fashions Murphy is wearing. “I design for every woman to have something beautiful to hang in her closet,” says Forestene.

The Boogie For Obama party will raise dollars for Obama’s campaign for the Presidency. Presented by United Thru Change on Saturday, MAY 31, the action begins at 8pm and continues through 1am at the Haven Art Lounge, 1820 Dorchester Avenue, Dorchester. Music for the night provided by DJ;s Anastasie, Bob Diesel, JQ, and Criss features old school house and R&B classics.

Similar to the Harry Potter series, C.S. LEWIS’ Narnia books mature with each offering, becoming progressively darker and more complex.

In this most recent installment, THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA: PRINCE CASPIAN, the Narnia Chronicles reach an action-packed and emotional crescendo. As fans of the Lewis books are aware, this story serves as the torch-passing moment when the Pevensies, the four British school children of The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, with young Caspian (Ben Barnes), a handsome and charismatic warrior whose job it is to take on the mantle of franchise-bearer through the remaining sequels.

Prince Caspian is practically one long battle scene after another that opens some 1,300 years after the events in The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, in the royal castle of the Telmarines, an intriguing Spanish/Franco/Greco (but English speaking) race that has risen to rule the world once known as Narnia. Caspian takes to flight and, after entering the forbidden forest, encounters talking animals, dwarves and the like.

A year after their own adventures, the Pevensies are again transported to a Narnia in ruins, in which they, the four monarchs of legend, are but a mythical memory. There is no sign of Azlan, the Lion-god, except in flash visions by Lucy (Georgie Henley), the youngest of the quartet.

Once the Pevensies meet young Caspian, the Prince learns of the genocide carried out by his people on the Narnians and decides to wage war against his Uncle Miraz, the man who would have him killed. Young Lucy goes out hunting for Azlan while the rest of the kids are engaged in a fierce battle with the troops of King Miraz. It’s only after defeating him can Narnia pass back to the hands of its rightful ruler, Prince Caspian. The battle scenes are quite long and are punctuated by a symbolic parting of the Red Sea moment that brought laughs of derision from much of the audience.

There is far more of an attempt at improvised humor in film two of the series and most comes from the talking badger (Eddie Izzard) and the angry dwarf (Peter Dinklage- actually not funny at all) and, if you look really closely, you’ll make out Tilda Swinton in the role of a centaur- in addition to her brief appearance as the White Witch.

While there is ample computer-generated artistry in Prince Caspian, a sprouting of puppy-love and the prerequisite devotion to justice and honor, this second part in C.S. Lewis’ seven part fantasy feels rather thin in comparison to part one. It’s somehow less magical than the first installment, as if all the innocence of discovery has been replaced too abruptly by puberty and is necessary cynicism.

UNITED THRU CHANGE (UTC) presents a party with a purpose BOOGIE FOR OBAMA on Sat. MAY 31, from 8pm sharp until 1am at HAVEN ART LOUNGE, 1820 Dorchester Avenue, with a full night of artistic expressions generously offered by various Boston artists to raise funds for the Obama campaign. Old school house and R&B classics by DJ’s ANASTASIE, BOB DIESEL, JQ and CRISS. INSPIRATION fashion designs by FORASTENE BAILEY plus spoken word and performing artists, IGINA, RADIANT JASMIN and BRIDGIT BROWN, and art on display by Barrington Edwards, Cynthia Bogues, Laurence Martin Pierce, Shea Ramone Justice and Daniel Edwards. HAVEN ART LOUNGE is at 1820 Dorchester Avenue. Click here for more information.

ROXBURY ACTION PROGRAM (RAP) presents its Annual HARLEM BOOK FAIR – ROXBURY, Saturday, JUNE 14, 12 – 6pm featuring Boston’s first Poet Laureate, Sam Cornish, writer’s workshops, African American Book Clubs, Story telling, face painting, prizes and entertainment. The HARLEM BOOK FAIR-ROXBURY has moved to Warren Street in Dudley Sq. near the Dudley Branch Library. In case of rain, the fair will be held at the Vine St. Community Center. For author and vendor applications or more information call 617-442-4400.

REPRESENTATIVE MARIE ST. FLEUR invites you to join her For The 2008 Dorchester Day Parade Sunday, JUNE 1, at the corner of Richmont Street & Dorchester Avenue (in front of CVS) at 12:00 noon. Please call Diane Wignall at 617-722-2380 to confirm your attendance.

Please join the South End Center for a BOOK SIGNING AND RECEPTION on Wednesday JUNE 11, 6:30 – 8pm with Dr. Kenneth Edelin, M.D., author of Broken Justice. The event will take place at United South End Settlements’ Harriet Tubman House. Broken Justice is the true story about Dr. Kenneth C. Edelin, a young, Black doctor who arrived in Boston in 1971 to do his residency training in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Boston City Hospital . In, 1974 he was three (3) months away from completing his residency when he was indicted for manslaughter by a secret Grand Jury. The indictment concerned an abortion he performed on a 17-year old girl, and the alleged victim was her aborted fetus. Please RSVP at 617-375-8137 or via email at awhitaker@uses.org

The Roxbury Media Institute & The Haley House Bakery Cafe invite you to ‘aRt IS LiFe iTSELF! A Performance Series: Embracing Art, Culture & Spirituality’ a Multicultural, Intergenerational, Humanistic experience, every Thursday night, serving tapas starting approximately 7pm at The Haley House Bakery Cafe, 12 Dade Street, Roxbury, near Dudley station. Call 617-445-0900 for details on who’s performing each week.

AT HOME IN UTOPIA screenings at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts: A new film that traces the fascinating history of the United Workers Cooperative Colony-a.k.a. “The Coops”-one of four cooperative apartments built in the Bronx in the 1920′s by visionary Jewish garment workers. A portrait of secular Jewish values, Black-Jewish integration, Communists and immigrants catapulting out of tenement life, Michal Goldman‘s documentary is a must-see. Dates/times: JUNE 12, 8 pm; JUNE 15, 2:15 pm with Matt Thall, Housing and Community Activist; June 19, 1pm with Dr. Alvin Poussaint, Psychiatrist, Media Conusltant, Author; June 22, 12:20 pm with Author Vivian Gornick; July 3, 6:30pm with Jeff Crosby, President, IUE-CWA Local 201; July 6, 2:15pm.

The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) partners with Berklee College of Music to present a free summer concert series: HARBORWALK SOUNDS, which showcases some of the best new talent Berklee has to offer, starting JUNE 19 with harpist MAEVE GILCHRIST and continues every Thursday through SEPTEMBER 11, from 6 – 8:30 p.m. The action takes place on the waterfront Putnam Investments Plaza at the ICA. (In case of rain, the event will be moved indoors.) Enjoy the best of both institutions with this free series of concerts featuring rising stars in jazz, world, Latin and more. Admission to both the concert and the ICA is free on Target Free Thursdays. For information, call (617) 478-3100

SAVE THE DATE: JULY 28 – AUGUST 3 for the 10th Annual ROXBURY FILM FESTIVAL. Check the RFF website for updates.

About The Color of Film

The Color of Film Collaborative is a non-profit organization that supports and fosters the individuals and organizations in the creation of diverse images of people of color in film, video, theater and other media, by providing artists with opportunities to exhibit, distribute and find funding for their work, as well as provide a supportive environment where they can share and develop their ideas, their vision and their work with their peers. About Us

Roxbury International Film Festival

Join us July 29th - August 1st, 2010 for the 12th Annual Roxbury Film Festival. Incredible movies will be playing and other events will be happening and more. Find out more

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In collaboration with The Haley House Bakery Café, the Color of Film Collaborative presents our ongoing film series, featuring independent cinema and delicious food. Read more...

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